Our Past Is Present December 5, 2017

December 5, 2017

            This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            Today’s story is about women in the 20^th century workplace.  The 1906 Junction City Directory listed 318 women with occupational designations other than housewife.  These outside of the home job titles ranged from chambermaid, service girl or domestic to physician and music teacher.  At the beginning of the 20^th century, it seemed that few women could enjoy the luxury of not preparing for some type of useful occupation and in some cases they continued in this work even after marriage.

            Many ladies were stenographers and clerks.  Early photographs show a lady teller in the age at the Jellison Loan Company office at Seventh and Washington and an early professional woman driving to work in a buggy.

            The nursing profession has been traditionally filled by women and there were half a dozen nurses and one female physician listed in 1905.  There were also many women who worked in less than glamorous jobs.  Those jobs were laundresses, housekeepers, domestics or servants, printers, waitresses, cooks, nursemaids and cleaning girls.  These occupations were all respectable and were often the means of supporting a widow’s family or providing the way for a farmer’s daughter to live in town and attend high school. 

            One of the most desirable occupations in Junction City in the early century was that of being a telephone operator.  The Junction City Telephone Company, founded by R.B. Fegan, was growing by leaps and bounds.  In 1900, there were almost 90 telephones in Junction City and 13 at Fort Riley.  One girl handled the switchboard in the first telephone office located in a little room above a barbershop on Washington Street.

            Perhaps the most common profession for a woman at the turn of the century in Geary County was that of a teacher.  These “normal training” graduates went out into the 36 rural schools in the county or taught in one of the four city grade schools or high school.  

            Women continue to play an important part in the Junction City workplace.  We now have more women in positions of leadership than might have ever been imagined at the turn of the 20^th century.  The sad part is that it has taken over 100 years for women as a group to get where they are today.

            Tomorrow’s story will be about 1921 Christmas gift ideas.